band names explored

ABBA
An acronym for the first names of the band members: Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Anderson and Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad.

AC/DC
A band member saw AC/DC on a sewing machine and figured it has something to do with power. He was right, it means ‘Alternating Current / Direct Current’. The band didn’t realise it was also slang for bi-sexual, which caused a few awkward moments in their early days. A silly rumour claims the acronym ‘Anti-Christ Devil’s Children’.

AEROSMITH
It was evidently a word Joey Kramer wrote all over his notebooks in high school. Some think they were inspired by the 1925 book ‘Arrowsmith’ by Sinclair Lewis.

ART OF NOISE
Named after the 1913 manifesto called ‘The Art of Noises’ by Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo. Russolo made noise machines, wrote music for them, and also recorded sounds from the environment for musical pleasure.

ATREYU
A character in” The Neverending Story”.

B-52’s
The beehive hairstyle popular in the 1950’s was called a B-52. Also a type of U.S. Air Force bomber.

BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE
A combination of band members’ last names and the trucker’s magazine ‘Overdrive’. They were originally called Brave Belt, then Bachman-Turner, then the final name.

BAD COMPANY
A 1972 movie starring Jeff Bridges.

BADFINGER
The working title of the Beatles song “A Little Help From My Friends”.

BAUHAUS
Named after the style of graphic design and famous school of architecture

BAY CITY ROLLERS
They blindly stuck a pin on a map. It landed on Bay City, Michigan.

BEATLES
A few stories floating around about this one. Stuart Sutcliffe came up with the Beetles in 1960, which was evidently a play on Buddy Holly’s Crickets. They went by the Quarrymen and the Silver Beetles a while later, then shortened and mutated that to the Beatles. Lennon and Sutcliffe may have also been influenced by the film ‘The Wild One’, which featured a motorcycle gang called the Beetles. John Lennon is generally credited with combining Beetles and Beat to come up with the Beatles spelling. Lennon was also fond of saying he had a vision as a child of a flaming pie in the sky that said ‘You are Beatles with an ‘A’….

BEE GEES
Their name was not derived from ‘Brothers Gibb’ as most people assume. Two friends that helped them out early on were Bill Goode and a disc jockey named Bill Gates…. (‘B. G.’s)

BIRTHDAY PARTY
The name of a play by Harold Pinter.

BIG T
He wasn’t in a physical position to call himself “Small T”.

BLACK CROWES
Originally named Uncle Crowe’s Garden after a children’s fairy tale.

BLACK FLAG
The flag flown by pirates and the brand name of a bug killer. When Adam Ant first played in California, Black Flag gave out buttons that read: ‘Black Flag kills Ants’

BLACK SABBATH
Named after a 1963 horror movie starring Boris Karloff. They released an album as Earth before changing their name to Black Sabbath.

BLUE OYSTER CULT
A combination of a recipe the band’s manager read in a book and the band’s fascination with the occult. The name is also an anagram of ‘Cully’s Stout Beer’.

BONO
The singer with U2, Paul Hewson was inspired by a hearing aid store in Dublin, Ireland called ‘Bono Vox’.

BOOKER T. & THE M.G.’S
Booker T. led the band and M.G. stands for Memphis Group.

BOOMTOWN RATS
From a gang in Woody Guthrie’s ‘Bound for Glory’ novel.

DAVID BOWIE
He took his last name from the Bowie knife (which he adored as a young lad). He didn’t go by his given name ‘David Jones’ because he didn’t want to be confused with Davy Jones of the Monkees.

BUZZCOCKS
From the term “bus cock”. Men sometimes get an erection because of the vibrations in a heavy diesel engine in a bus or truck.

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
Inspired by a strange Uncle of Don Van Vliet’s who would expose himself, squeeze his penis until the head turned purple, then comment about it looking “like a big ole’ beef heart”

RAY CHARLES
His real name is Ray Charles Robinson, but he wanted no confusion with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. Ray Charles didn’t go blind until he was 7-years-old, and would ride his bicycle around his home town after going blind!

CHEAP TRICK
They asked a Ouiji board what they should call their band.

CHICAGO
Their first album was released as Chicago Transit Authority, then the city of Chicago sued them. Chicago Transit Authority is the name of Chicago’s public transportation department.

CHILDREN OF BODOM
Name refers to the infamous Lake Bodom murders in Finland.

CHUMBAWAMBA
Based on a band member’s dream. He didn’t know which door to use in a public toilet because the signs said ‘Chumba’ and ‘Wamba’ instead of ‘Men’ and ‘Women’

CLASH
Taken from a newspaper headline describing ‘A Clash With Police’

COCTEAU TWINS
They were named after an old Simple Minds song first called “Cocteau Twins”, then renamed to “No Cure”. All this was inspired by a set of twins that spoke a language they created that sounded like gibberish to everyone else.

ALICE COOPER
They were inspired by talking to a spirit named Alice Cooper using their Ouija Board.

ELVIS COSTELLO
He combined Elvis Presley and Lou Costello.

CRANBERRIES
The name started as Cranberries Saw Us (a play on ‘Cranberry Sauce’). When Dolores O’Riordan joined, she recommended shortening the name.

CREEDANCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL
Name inspired by a logo on ‘Olympia’ beer cans. Their first label called them the Golliwogs (without the band’s permission).

CROWDED HOUSE
The New Zealand/Australian trio chose this name from their cramped living conditions at 1902 N. Sycamore Street in Los Angeles while working on their debut album.

DEF LEPPARD
Inspired by a drawing Joe Elliot made of a leopard with no ears, a ‘Deaf Leopard’.

DEPECHE MODE
It roughly translates to ‘Fashion News’, which was the name of a fashion magazine.

DEVO
Short for ‘de-evolution’, which the band think the human race is experiencing.

DICKIES
Named after the fashion item.

DIRE STRAITS
It describes the financial situation they were in when forming the band.

DOOBIE BROTHERS
Doobie is slang for marijuana joint. Their first name was Pud.

DOORS
From a William Blake quote ‘If the doors of perception were to be cleansed evry thing would appear to man as it is, infinite’. The Doors were originally called the Psychedelic Rangers.

DURAN DURAN
A villan in the 1967 Jane Fonda movie ‘Barbarella’.

DURUTTI COLUMN
A Spanish Civil War brigade led by libertarian anarchist Buenaventura Durruti.

BOB DYLAN
His real name Robert Zimmerman was too long and he was a big fan of Dylan Thomas.

EAGLES
Inspired by the Byrds, who were a big influence on the Eagles. Their first name was Teen King and the Emergencies.

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN
Echo was the name of the drum machine used in their early demos.

ELTON JOHN
His real name is Reginald Dwight. He took his stage name from two other British musicians, Elton Dean and John Baldry.

EURYTHMICS
a system of music instruction from the 1890s that emphasises physical response.

EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL
Inspired by an advertisement for a British clothing store that would sell you ‘Everything but the Girl’. The implication was that everything was for sale except the sales girl.

FAITH NO MORE
The band was originally called Sharp Young Men, but changed to Faith No Man when their front man was Mike ‘The Man’ Morris. After he left, ‘The Man’ was no more, so they switched to Faith No More.

FALL
Inspired by a novel by Albert Camus.

FLEETWOOD MAC
Slight modification of Mick Fleetwood’s name with the ‘Mac’ coming from John McVie.

FOREIGNER
British guitarist Mick Jones started the band in New York. Since he was a foreigner that became the name.

FUGS
When Norman Mailer first published ‘The Naked And The Dead’ in the U.S. he had to replace ‘fuck’ with ‘fug’

GANG OF FOUR
Group of old-style Chinese rulers who all ended up dead or in prison

GENESIS
The first book in the Bible. The name was part of their first album title From Genesis to Revelation which was suggested by their original manager Jonathan King.

GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR
Named for a 1976 Japanese black-and-white 16 mm documentary film, which follows the exploits of a Japanese biker gang, the Black Emperors.

GOLDEN EARRING
They were originally the Tornadoes, but there was a British band with that name. A movie called ‘Golden Earrings’ was the inspiration.

GRATEFUL DEAD
Refers to a series of Old English folk tales with the same basic theme. A traveler enters a village and finds the villagers desecrating, or refusing to bury the body of a dead man because he died owing creditors money. The traveler pays the dead man’s debts and sees to a decent burial. Later in his travels the man is saved by a mysterious event, which is credited to the dead man’s grateful spirit. Hence, the Grateful Dead. The band was originally the Warlocks, and picked Grateful Dead out of a dictionary after realising there was another band called the Warlocks.

GREEN DAY
If you smoked pot and goofed off all day, you just had a ‘Green Day’.

GTO’S
An acronym for ‘Girls Together Outrageously’. Frank Zappa produced one album by this motley bunch of hippie band groupies.

GUNS AND ROSES
From Axl Rose and Tracii Guns’ names.

HEAVEN 17
A fictitious band mentioned in the movie ‘A Clockwork Orange’

HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH
There was a kid in Darius Rucker’s high school who looked like an owl. They called him Hootie. There was another kid with puffed up cheeks that they called Blowfish. Hootie is also the nickname of the legendary Kansas City jazz pianist Jay McShann.

HUSKER DU
An old boardgame, it’s NORWEIGIAN or DANISH (not Swedish, as incorrectly reported) for ‘Do you Remember?’.

IRON MAIDEN
Named after a medieval torture device.

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
Inspired by the blues player Blind Lemon Jefferson and the name of a friend’s dog.

JETHRO TULL
Jethro Tull was a British inventor/farmer in the 1800’s who invented the precurser to the modern plow. The band used to change their name to get gigs, and Jethro Tull proved to be a lucky one.

JOY DIVISION
From a sado-masochistic novel ‘The House of Dolls’ by Karol Cetinsky. Joy Divisions were lines of huts in which deported women were forced to prostitute themselves to Nazi officers on leave.

JUDAS PRIEST
From the Bob Dylan tune “The ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest”. Also a mild curse.

KING CRIMSON
Their original lyricist, Peter Sinfield, thought of it as a synonym for Beelzebub, which is Hebrew for ‘Lord of the Flies’. Beelzebub was Satan’s chief lieutenant among the fallen angels.

KISS
According to Paul Stanley, Kiss was a momentary inspiration that sounded dangerous and sexy at the same time. Kiss denies the fundamentalist rumour that the name stands for ‘Knights In Satan’s Service’.

K.L.F.
An acronym for ‘Kopyright Liberation Front’, which sums up their attitude towards using samples from other artists.

KRAFTWERK
German for ‘power plant’

LL Cool J
“Ladies Love Cool James”

LED ZEPPELIN
Stories vary, but basically Keith Moon told Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones that their new project would go over like a lead balloon, hence, Led Zeppelin. The ‘Led’ spelling was to make sure people pronounced the name right.

LEMONHEADS
A type of candy sweet.

LEVEL 42
A supercomputer in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ novel gave the answer to life, the universe and everything as “42”. There were copyright problems with actually calling the band 42, so they tacked on ‘Level’. The rumour that they are named after a sign in the movie ‘Brazil’ is wrong.

LOVIN’ SPOONFUL
From the lyrics of John Hurt’s “Coffee Blues”. It’s also slang for sperm/semen.

LYNYRD SKYNYRD
Named after Robert E. Lee High school gym coach, Leonard Skinner, who punished founding members Gary Rossington and Bob Burns several times for breaking the school’s strict dress code which did not allow boys to have long hair touching the collar or sideburns below the ears. Earlier band names were ‘Noble Five’ and ‘One Percent’.

MANIC STREET PREACHERS
James Dean Bradfield was inspired by a manic street preaching tramp one day.

MC5
The band liked the name for some reason before thinking up the acronym ‘Motor City Five’ (for Detriot!)

MEGADETH
Dave Mustane was inspired by a government pamphlet after getting kicked out of Metallica. A Megadeath is a military term for one million dead people, so World War II was responsible for 80 Megadeaths. Megadeth is the phonetic spelling for Megadeath.

MEKONS
Sci-fi villans in the ‘Dan Dare’ cartoon strip in the ‘Eagle’ comic.

METALLICA
Lars Ulrich was helping a friend think of a name for a metal fanzine. The magazine went with ‘Metal Mania’ and Lars kept Metallica, which was one of the suggestions.

MISFITS
A 1961 movie starring Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe.

MOODY BLUES
They were originally M&B 5 because they wanted to perform in a Birmingham brewery called ‘Mitchell’s Bottlery.’ The building had a big ‘MB’. It didn’t work so they changed names. Duke Ellington’s ‘Mood Indigo’ was one member’s favourite song.

MOTHERS OF INVENTION
Originally just called the Mothers (polite for ‘Motherfuckers’.) Their label asked them to add ‘of Invention’.

MOTLEY CRUE
An observant friend said “What a Motley looking Crue.”

MOTORHEAD
Slang for a speed freak (which Lemmy evidently was).

MOTT THE HOOPLE
Named for the novel “Mott the Hoople” by Willard Manus.

MR. MISTER
From a T-Rex song on the Tanx album.

MUDHONEY
Named for a 1965 Russ Meyer film.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE
This Irish / English band was named after a horror film they never actually saw.

NEW YORK DOLLS
Ironic name for five trashy junkies in New York that dressed as women on stage.

NIRVANA
In Buddhism it means the state of perfect blessedness attained through the annihilation of the self.

GARY NUMAN
His real name is Gary Webb. He took ‘Neuman’ from a Yellow Pages listing for a plumbing company and modified the spelling.

O.A.R.
Of A Revolution.

OASIS
Noel Gallagher was a roadie for the Inspiral Carpets when he was inspired to name the band Oasis.

O’JAYS
Named after the Cleveland disc jockey Eddie O’Jay, who helped the band out in their early days. They were originally called the Mascots.

O.M.D.
An acronym for ‘Orchestral Maneouvres in the Dark’

OPETH
Named after the ancient city from the novel ‘The Sunbird’ by Wilbur Smith.

ORB
A device in Woody Allen’s movie ‘Sleeper’. The Orb was a silver ball that turned people on when they touched it.

PANTERA
Portuguese for “panther”.

PEARL JAM
“The name is in reference to the pearl itself,… and the natural process from which a pearl comes from. Basically, taking excrement or waste and turning it into something beautiful.”
-Eddie VedderRumor – Slang for “ejaculated liquid”.Rumor – Eddie Vedder had a great grandmother named Pearl who made a great jam.
(Note: Eddie did have a great grandmother named “Pearl”)

PET SHOP BOYS
A bit of a horror story… In the underground gay disco scene they have (or had) so called darkrooms. You don’t know who it is you’re doing it with. A variation is the Pet Shop: you don’t know what you’re doing it with.

POGUES
Shortened from ‘Pogue Mahone’, which is a distorted version of Póg Mo hón, which is Irish Gaelic for ‘kiss my ass’.

POLICE
For some reason they enjoy using themes related to law enforcement. Consider Sting’s name and the Stuart Copeland side project Klark Kent. One of Stuart Copeland’s brothers used to head I.R.S. Records and another brother ran the FBI Tour Agency.

IGGY POP
In his biography, Gimme Danger, Iggy says it was after one of his early bands, the Iguanas. When he formed The Stooges, their management billed him as Iggy Stooge, but Iggy wasn’t too keen on it and changed it to Iggy Pop, reasoning that Pop has a kind of energy to it.

PRETTY THINGS
After the Bo Diddley song “Pretty Thing”.

PROCOL HARUM
Named after Keith Reid’s cat.

PSYCHEDELIC FURS
They enjoy psychedelic music even though they don’t play it. After a night of drinking and toying with names like Psychedelic Shoes…. shirts…. socks…. etc, Psychedelic Furs sounded best.

PULP
Originally known as Arabacus Pulp (after a commodity Jarvis Cocker learned about during economics). This was shortened to Pulp because nobody else knew what the full name meant.

QUEEN
Freddie Mercury liked the name for the transvestite connotation and the glamorous image of Queens in royalty.

RADIOHEAD
Named after a Talking Heads song called “Radio Head”.

RAMONES
Early in his career, Paul McCartney used to call himself Paul Ramone.

R.E.M
‘Rapid Eye Movement’ is a state of sleep.

REO SPEEDWAGON
Reo Speedwagon was a model name for a line of trucks built by Reo Motors Corporation of Lansing Michigan. Reo (pronounced just as spelled) is derived from the initials of Ransom Ely Olds, who left Oldsmobile, the company he founded, to form Reo in 1905.

REPLACEMENTS
Legend has it that they were given a gig after another band failed to show up one night. When asked who they were, Paul Westerberg quipped “We’re the Replacements”.

RESIDENTS
The band initially had no name. All their rejection letters were addressed to ‘Resident’.

ROLLING STONES
From the Muddy Waters song “Rolling Stone”. The name was suggested by Brian Jones.

RUSH
They were rushing to think up a name before their first gig, and John Rustey’s older brother yelled, “Why don’t you call your band Rush?”.

SAVAGE GARDEN
From an Ann Rice novel.

SCRITTI POLITTI
The title of political writings by Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist.

SELECTOR
The Selectors in Jamaican and British dancehall culture are the disc jockeys that play records for dancehall rappers.

SEX PISTOLS
Malcolm Mclaren came up with the name. It was partially inspired by his punk clothing shop called ‘Sex’.

SIMPLE MINDS
Taken from a line in the David Bowie song “Jean Genie”.

SISTERS OF MERCY
A tribute to the Leonard Cohen song of same name. There is also an order of nuns known as the Sisters of Mercy.

SKID ROW
Slang for run down inner city neighborhoods where winos, junkies, street criminals and various poor people can afford to live. Originally called Skip Rope, but Jon Bon Jovi convinced them Skid Row would sound more professional.

SKUNK ANANSIE
Anansie is a creature in Jamaican folklore who is half man, half spider, and always a prankster. Skunk refers to either good marijuana or the smelly little black and white animals.

SLEEPER
The title of a Woody Allen movie.

SMALL FACES
They were inspired by the Who song “I’m The Face”. ‘Face’ is Mod slang for ‘stylish guy’. The band members were all short men!

SMITHS
They wanted a generic name void of any preconceptions about their style of music.

SOFT BOYS
Combination of two William Burroughs novels, ‘Soft Machine’ and ‘Wild Boys’.

SPANDAU BALLET
Origanally called ‘The Makers’, the band changed their name after a visit to Berlin where one of their roadies saw some graffiti refering to Spandau Prison. Supposedly, there were many hangings there, in which the victims would twitch and jump at the end of a rope…hence, doing the “Spandau Ballet.”

STEELY DAN
A dildo in the William Burroughs novel ‘Naked Lunch’. According to Burroughs, the first Steely Dan was a metal dildo that an evil German bulldyke prostitute crushed using her nether regions, and the second Steely Dan is still in use.

STEPPENWOLF
The title of a Herman Hesse novel.

STONE ROSES
Similar to their original name, English Rose (which was inspired by a Rolling Stones song.)

STYX
After the mythical river Styx that people crossed over to go into Hell.

SUPERTRAMP
Named after a book called ‘Autobiography Of A Supertramp’, written by R.E. Davies in 1910.

TALKING HEADS
Media jargon for a camera shot showing only the top of someone’s shoulders and their head. One of the band members saw this term in a newspaper’s T.V. program guide.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
They took the name from a friend’s ventriloquist act, which was named after a film starring George C. Scott, which in turn was inspired by a section of Don Quixote. Don Quixote’s trusted servant asks why he is preparing to attack several windmills with his lance. Don Quixote replys, “Because they might be giants.”

THOMSON TWINS
After two characters in the ‘Tintin’ comics by the Belgium artist Herge.

THREE DOG NIGHT
Inspired by an Australian Aborigine custom of sleeping with three dogs on extremely cold nights.

TROGGS
From the term ‘troglodyte’.

U2
A type of spy plane used by the United States. Bono explained once that U2 grew out of thoughts of interactivity with the audience…. as in ‘you too.’

UB40
Title of an unemployment form. (Unemployment Benefit, Form 40)

UGLY KID JOE
A parody of Pretty Boy Floyd, a band they played a show with early on.

ULTRAVOX
Latin for ‘the greatest amount of voice’

URIAH HEEP
From a character in the Dickens novel ‘David Copperfield’.

VELVET UNDERGROUND
The name of an S&M book a band member found on a sidewalk in New York.

W.A.S.P.
An acronym for ‘We Are Sex Perverts’.

WHAM!
They wanted to make it so big in the music business that they named themselves Wham! and their debut album Make It Big.

WHO
The legend goes like this: a bunch of people were brainstorming for names. The band members were already so deaf they kept saying, “The who?”. Finally, someone suggested the Who as their name.

WINGS
Paul McCartney thought of the name while waiting in a hospital wing for Linda to give birth to one of their children.

XTC
Andy Partridge was inspried by a Jimmy Durante clip when he said, “That’s it, I’m in ecstasy!”

1 Comment

Just a note on Echo And The Bunnymen’s name, apparantly they were named by a friend of theirs (with, as you say, a reference to Will Sergeants EKO drum machine) however, one the other names he suggested was Glycerine And The Fan Extracters! Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

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